 | Joaquin Miller's Poems |  |
MISCELLANEOUS LINES
THE WORLD IS A BETTER WORLD
And a great good mother this earth of ours;
Her white tomorrows are a white stairway
To lead us up to the far star flowers—
The spiral tomorrows that one by one
We climb and we climb in the face of the sun.
For many a hero dares bear with wrong—
Will laugh at wrong and will turn away;
Will whistle it down the wind with a song—
Dares slay the wrong with his splendid scorn!
The bravest old hero that ever was born!
TO SAVE A SOUL
To save the soul from perishing
By planting it where heaven's rain
May reach and make it grow again.
The soul to perish is as one
Who gathers up the empty sheaves
When all the golden grain is done.
DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI AT NIGHT
Leaving behind us a lane of light,
Weaving a web in the woof of night,
Cleaving a continent's wealth in twain.
Writing, even as the lightnings write
High over the awful arched forehead of night,
Jehovah's dread, unutterable name.
A NUBIAN FACE ON THE NILE
One night we touched the lily shore,And then passed on, in night indeed,
Against the far white waterfall.
I saw no more, shall know no more
Of her for aye. And you who read
This broken bit of dream will smile,
Half vexed that I saw aught at all.
MONTARA
Montara, Italy to me!
Montara, newest, truest, best
Of all brave cities by this sea!
Where I mid-March may sit me down
And watch thy warm waves come and go,
Than two whole blocks of Boston town.
A CHRISTMAS EVE IN CUBA
Their sins are many, for their land is fair;
The perfumed waves and the perfumed winds,
The cocoa-palms and the perfumed air;
The proud old Dons, so poor and so proud,
So poor their ghosts can scarce wear a shroud—
This town of Columbus has priests and prayer;
And great bells pealing in the palm land.
The cross on his breast, a priest at his prayer;
His slave at his feet, his son at his head—
A slave's white face in her midnight hair;
A slave's white face, why, a face as white,
As white as that dead man's face this night—
This town of Columbus can pray for the dead;
Such great bells booming in the palm land.
As dead as the isle of the great, warm seas;
As dead as the Don, so proud and so poor,
With two quite close by the bed on their knees;
The slave at his feet, the son at his head,
And both in tears for the proud man dead—
This town of Columbus has tears, if you please;
And great bells pealing in the palm land.
In the face of the slave, as the face of the son,
The same proud look of the dead man's face—
The beauty of one; and the valor of one—
The slave at his feet, the son at his head,
This town of Columbus, this land of the sun
Keeps great bells clanging in the palm land.
A statue stepped out from some temple of old;
Why, you could entwine your two hands in her hair,
Nor yet could encompass its ample, dark fold.
And oh, that pitiful, upturned face;
Her master lies dead—she knows her place.
This town of Columbus has hundreds at prayer,
And great bells booming in the palm land.
This slave his fortune. Now, what shall he do?
Why, what should he do? or what should he care,
Save only to cherish a pride as true?—
Black sins confessed when the damned have died.
This town of Columbus has pride with her prayer—
And great bells pealing in the palm land!
And she, his sister, his own born slave!
His secret is safe; just master and she;
These two, and the dead at the door of the grave ...
Why, death, my friend, is a friend most true—
This town of Columbus keeps pride and keeps prayer,
And her great bells booming everywhere!
COMANCHE
Fair woman's hair with blood upon!
That Ishmaelite of all the earth
Has like a cyclone, come and gone—
His feet are as the blighting dearth;
His hands are daggers drawn.
And red revenge is on his track!
The black-haired Bedouin en route
Looks like a long, bent line of black.
He does not halt nor turn about;
He scorns to once look back.
Across the snow-white, sand-sown pass;
The bearded rangers on their track
Bear thirsty sabers bright as glass.
Yet not one red man there looks back;
His nerves are braided brass.
To clasp its children in their flight!
Up, up from out the sands of flame
They clambered, bleeding to their height;
This savage summit, now so tame,
Their lone star, that dread night!
“Huzzah! the rovers cease to roam!
The river keeps yon farther side,
A roaring cataract of foam.
Last night by hearth and home!”
The high, still moon stood like a nun.
The horses stood as willows weep;
Their weary heads drooped every one.
But no man there had thought of sleep;
Each waited for the sun.
Of snow-white peace she ceaseless poured;
The rock-built battlement grew still,
The deep-down river roared and roared.
But each man there with iron will
Leaned silent on his sword.
And hear, ah, hear that piercing sound.
It is their lorn death-song they keep
In solemn and majestic round.
The red fox of these deserts deep
At last is run to ground.
Their death-lights, their death-wails each one.
The river in sad chorus roared
And boomed like some great funeral gun.
The while each ranger nursed his sword
And waited for the sun.
OUR HEROES OF TODAY
I
With high face held to her ultimate star,With swift feet set to her mountains of gold,
This new-built world, where the wonders are,
She has built new ways from the ways of old.
II
Her builders of worlds are workers with hands;Her true world-builders are builders of these,
The engines, the plows; writing poems in sands
Of gold in our golden Hesperides.
III
I reckon these builders as gods among men:I count them creators, creators who knew
The thrill of dominion, of conquest, as when
God set His stars spinning their spaces of blue.
IV
A song for the groove, and a song for the wheel,And a roaring song for the rumbling car;
But away with the pomp of the soldier's steel,
And away forever with the trade of war.
V
The hero of time is the hero of thought;The hero who lives is the hero of peace;
And braver his battles than ever were fought,
From Shiloh back to the battles of Greece.
VI
The hero of heroes is the engineer;The hero of height and of gnome-built deep,
Whose only fear is the brave man's fear
That some one waiting at home might weep.
VII
The hero we love in this land todayIs the hero who lightens some fellow-man's load—
Who makes of the mountain some pleasant highway;
Who makes of the desert some blossom-sown road.
VIII
Then hurrah! for the land of the golden downs,For the golden land of the silver horn;
Her heroes have built her a thousand towns,
But never destroyed her one blade of corn.
BY THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI
A dreamful dominion of cypress-trees,
A gray bird rising forever more,
And drifting away toward the Mexican seas—
A lone bird seeking for some lost mate,
So dolorous, lorn and desolate.
And gray are the trees in their cloaks of moss;—
That gray bird rising and drifting away,
Slow dragging its weary long legs across—
So weary, just over the gray wood's brink;
It wearies one, body and soul to think.
The gray soldiers' graves; and so, God's will—
These cypress-trees' roots are still running blood;
The smoke of battle in their mosses still—
That gray bird wearily drifting away
Was startled some long-since battle day.
HER PICTURE
That ever mocked man's picturing,
I picture her as one who drew
Aside life's curtain and looked through
The mists of all life's mystery
As from a wood to open sea.
How rare is truth to be untrue—
As one who knew the awful sign
Of death, of life, of the divine
Sweet pity of all loves, all hates,
Beneath the iron-footed fates.
And olive leaves and vine-set land;
While strife stood by on either hand,
And wrung her tears like rosaries.
I picture her in passing rhyme
As of, yet not a part of, these—
A woman born above her time.
That trusting looked you through and through;
The sweet, arched mouth, a bow new bent,
That sent love's arrow swift and true.
Hath not such pearls in all her stores,
Nor all her storied, spice-set shores
Have fragrance such as it hath spent.
DEAD IN THE LONG, STRONG GRASS
But he died with his sword in his hand.
Who says it? who saw it? God saw it!
And I knew him! St. George! he would draw it,
Though they swooped down in mass
Till they darkened the land!
Then the seventeen wounds in his breast!
Ah! these witness best!
Dead! and alone in the great dark land!
O mother! not Empress now, mother!
A nobler name, too, than all other,
The laurel leaf fades from thy hand!
O mother that waiteth, a mass!
Masses and chants must be said,
And cypress, instead.
Born to the saddle and bred by a chain of events to ride with the wind until I met the stolid riders of England, I can now see how it was that Anthony Trollope, Lord Houghton and others of the saddle and “meet” gave me ready place in their midst. Not that the English were daring; but they were less fortunate; may I say less experienced. I recall the fact that I once found Lord Houghton's brother, Lord Crewe, and his son also, under the hands of the surgeon, near York—one with a broken thigh, and the other with a few broken ribs. But in all our hard riding I never had a scratch.
One morning Trollope hinted that my immunity was due to my big Spanish saddle, which I had brought from Mexico City. I threw my saddle on the grass and rode without so much as a blanket. And I rode neck to neck; and then left them all behind and nearly every one unhorsed.
Prince Napoleon was of the party that morning; and as the gentlemen pulled themselves together on the return he kept by my side, and finally proposed a tour through Notts and Sherwood Forest on horseback. And so it fell out that we rode together much.
But he had already been persistently trained in the slow military methods, and it was in vain that I tried to teach him to cling to his horse and climb into the saddle as he ran, after the fashion of Indians and vaqueros. He admired it greatly, but seemed to think it unbecoming a soldier.
It was at the Literary Fund dinner, where Stanley and Prince Napoleon stood together when they made their speeches, that I saw this brave and brilliant young man for the last time. He was about to set out for Africa with the English troops to take part in the Zulu war.
He seemed very serious. When about to separate he took my hand, and, looking me all the time in the face, placed a large diamond on my finger, saying something about its being from the land to which he was going. I refused to take it, for I had heard that the Emperor died poor. But as he begged me to keep it, at least till he should come back, it has hardly left my hand since he placed it there.
Piteous that this heir to the throne of France should die alone in the yellow grass at the hand of savages in that same land where the great Emperor had said, “Soldiers, from yonder pyramids twenty centuries behold your deeds.”
GARFIELD
Where gnarled old maples make array,
Deep scarred from Redmen gone to rest,
Where unnamed heroes hew the way
For worlds to follow in their quest,
Where pipes the quail, where squirrels play
Through tops of trees with nuts for toy,
A boy stood forth clear-eyed and tall,
A timid boy, a bashful boy,
Yet comely as a son of Saul—
A boy all friendless, all unknown,
Yet heir apparent to a throne:
For him who bears him, noblest, best,
And this he won by simple worth,
That boy from out the wooded West.
And now to fall! Pale-browed and prone
He lies in everlasting rest.
The nations clasp the cold, dead hand;
The nations sob aloud at this;
The only dry eyes in the land
Now at the last we know are his;
While she who sends a wreath has won
More conquests than her hosts had done.
Full circle, and behold a grave
Beneath thy loved old trees is done.
A solemn beckon back. The brave
Old maples welcome, every one.
Receive him, earth. In center land,
As in the center of each heart,
As in the hollow of God's hand,
The coffin sinks. And we depart
Each on his way, as God deems best
To do, and so deserve to rest.
Walt Whitman chanced to be in Boston when I last visited Mr. Longfellow, and I was delighted to hear the poet at his table in the midst of his perfect family speak of him most kindly; for at this time the press and all small people were abusing Whitman terribly. Soon after he looked me up at my hotel in Boston, and we two called on the good, gray poet together. I mention this merely to italicize the suggestion that Longfellow's was a large nature.
Many others, I know, stood nearer him, so much nearer and dearer, and maybe I ought not to claim the right to say much of a sacred nature; but somehow I always felt, when he reached out his right hand and drew me to him, and looked me fairly and silently in the face with his earnest seer eyes, that he knew me, did not dislike me, and that he knew, soul to soul, we each sought the good and the beautiful and true, each after his fashion, and as best he knew.
He had a pretty way of always getting out of the house—that beautiful house of his, where Washington had dwelt—into the woods. He possessed a wonderful lot of books, but he knew the birds, the crickets, the flowers, woods and grasses were more in my way, and with rare delicacy he never talked on books at all, but led out at once, whenever possible, to our mutual friends in the rear of the old Headquarters of Washington.
It was on this occasion that a pall of black suddenly fell upon the Republic. Garfield lay dead at Elberon!
A publisher solicited from each of the several authors then in and about Boston some tribute of sorrow for the dead. The generous sum of $100 was checked as an earnest. I remember how John Boyle O'Reilly and I went to big-hearted Walt Whitman and wrestled with him in a vain effort to make him earn and accept his $100.
“Yes, I'm sorry as the sorriest; sympathize with the great broken heart of the world over this dead sovereign citizen. But I've nothing to say.”
And so, persuade as we might, even till past midnight, Walt Whitman would not touch the money or try to write a line. He was poor; but bear it forever in testimony that he was honest, and would not promise to sell that which he felt that God had not at that moment given him to sell. And hereafter, whenever any of you are disposed to speak or even think unkindly of Walt Whitman, remember this refusal of his to touch a whole heap of money when he might have had it for ten lines, and maybe less than ten minutes' employment. I love him for it. There is not a butcher, nor a baker, nor a merchant, nor a banker in America, perhaps, who would have been, under the circumstances, so stubbornly, savagely honest with the world and himself.
Early next morning I went to Mr. Longfellow in great haste and read my lines. Kindly he listened as I read, and then carefully looked them all over and made some important improvements. He had also partly written, and read me, his poem on the sad theme. But it was too stately and fine for company with our less mature work, and at the last moment it was withheld on the plea that it was still incomplete. It soon after appeared in the New York Independent. As I was hastening away with my manuscript for the press, he said as he came with me down to the gate, that the Queen of England had done more to conquer America by sending the wreath for the funeral of the dead President than all the Georges had ever done with all their troops and cannon. And he said it in such a poetical way that I thought it an unfinished couplet of his poem. I never saw him any more.
HE LOVES AND RIDES AWAY
She strayed in the night and her feet fell astray;
The great Mississippi was glad that day,
And that is the reason the poor girl died;
The great Mississippi was glad, I say,
And splendid with strength in his fierce, full pride—
And that is the reason the poor girl died.
Down under the dark, still cypresses there.
The Father of Waters he held her fast.
He kissed her face, he fondled her hair,
No more, no more an unloved outcast,
He clasped her close to his great, strong breast,
Brave lover that loved her last and best:
Down under the boughs where the bank was steep,
And cypress trees kneeled all gnarly and curled,
Where woods were dark as the waters were deep,
Where strong, swift waters were swept and swirled,
Where the whirlpool sobbed and sucked in its breath,
As some great monster that is choking to death:
That whirlpool eddied so dark and so deep
That even a populous world might have drowned,
She rode on the wave. And the trees that weep,
The solemn gray cypresses leaning o'er;
The roots that ran blood as they leaned from the shore!
She should have lain dead as the dead under ground;
She should have kept still as the dead on the hill!
But ever and ever she eddied around,
And so nearer and nearer she drew me there
Till her eyes met mine in their cold dead stare.
And she came so close to my feet on the shore;
And her large eyes, larger than ever before,
They never grew weary as dead men's do.
And her hair! as long as the moss that swept
From the cypress trees as they leaned and wept.
Her long white fingers slow pointing there;
Why, shoulder to shoulder the moon with me
On the bank that night, with her shoulders bare,
Slow pointing and pointing that white face out,
As it swirled and it swirled, and it swirled about.
Those great sad eyes that refused to sleep!
Reproachful sad eyes that had ceased to weep!
The reproachful dead that was not yet dead!
The long strong hair from that shapely head!
As she rode and she rode on that whirlpool's breast;
And she rode so swift, and she rode so strong,
Never to rest as the dead should rest.
Oh, tell me true, could her hair in the wave
Have grown, as grow dead men's in the grave?
Will grow in the grave of a virgin true,
Will grow and grow in the coffin there,
Till head and foot it is filled with hair
All silken and soft—but what say you?
Yea, tell me truly can this be true?
That it bound her about like a veil of night,
With only her pitiful face in sight!
As she rode so swift, and she rode so strong,
That it wrapped her about, as a shroud had done,
A shroud, a coffin, and a veil in one.
That whirling and whirling it is in my head,
For the eyes of my dead they are not yet dead,
Though surely the lady had long since died:
Then the mourning wood by the watery grave;
The moon's white face to the face in the wave.
Unasked up in heaven to show me that face.
I shall hate forever the sounding tide;
For oh, that swirling it is in my head
As it swept and it swirled with my dead not dead,
As it gasped and it sobbed as a God that had died.
AFTER THE BATTLE
The shouting of men and the marshaling!
Lo! cannon to cannon and earth struck dumb!
Oh, battle, in song, is a glorious thing!
Oh, glorious battle in story and song!
Oh, godlike man to die for the right!
Oh, manlike God to revenge the wrong!
Why, a soldier is something more than a king!
But after the battle! The riding away!
Ah, the riding away is another thing!
THOSE PERILOUS SPANISH EYES
Some flower-sown seas
Where boats go up and down,
And a sense of rest
To the tired breast
In this beauteous Aztec town.
That will blow men's rest to the stormiest skies,
Or whether they journey or they lie down—
Those perilous Spanish eyes!
Drawn sharp about
To prop the sapphire skies!
Two huge gate posts,
Snow-white like ghosts—
Gate posts to paradise!
There is trouble enough in this world, I surmise,
Without men riding in regiments down—
Oh, perilous Spanish eyes!
NEWPORT NEWS
The mad sea monster, the “Monitor”;
You may sweep the sea, peer forward and back,
But never a sign or a sound of war.
A vulture or two in the heavens blue;
A sweet town building, a boatman's call:
The far sea-song of a pleasure crew;
The sound of hammers. And that is all.
And where are the monsters that shook this shore?
The sea grew mad! And the shore shot flame!
The mad sea monsters they are no more.
The palm, and the pine, and the sea sands brown;
The far sea songs of the pleasure crews;
The air like balm in this building town—
And that is the picture of Newport News.
THE COMING OF SPRING
Shall keep her tryst, shall come from the South,
And oh, her robe of magnolia white!
And oh, and oh, the breath of her mouth!
And oh, her love in the leaves new born!
And oh, and oh, her lily-white feet
Set daintily down in the dew-wet morn!
And give God thanks, and shall dream and rest;
The stars slip down and a golden seal
Be set on the meadows my Love has blest.
The world lies waiting as the cold dead lie;
The frightened winds wail and the crisp-curled moon
Rides, wrapped in clouds, up the cold gray sky.
I sit all day by Potomac here,
Waiting and waiting the voice of the dove;
Waiting my darling, my own, my dear.
CHRISTMAS BY THE GREAT RIVER
What sword can cleave thy sinews through?
The south forever cradles you;
And yet the great North gives you birth.
Go forge a sword so keen, so true,
That it can thrust thy bosom through;
Then may this union not endure!
Against thy warm tremendous mouth,
Oh, tawny lion of the South,
To hear what story you shall say.
Of frost-bound homes, of babes at play—
What tales of twenty States the day
You left your lair and leapt forth:
And in the icy North uprose,
And shook your sides of rains and snows,
And rushed against the South to rest:
The far North folk? The maiden sweet—
The ardent lover at her feet—
What story of thy States today!
And whispered as it swept away:
“God's story in all States today
Is of a babe of Bethlehem.”
THOMAS OF TIGRE
Where in all thine isles art thou?
Sailing on Fonseca blue?
Nearing Amapala now?
King of Tigre, where art thou?
Saber hilt, or olive bough?
Crown of dust, or laurel green?
Roving love, or marriage vow?
King and comrade, where art thou?
Pitching tent in Pimo now?
Underneath magnolia trees?
Thatch of palm, or cedar bough?
Soldier singer, where art thou?
Saddle bow, or birchen prow?
Round the Isles of Amazon?
Pampas, plain, or mountain brow?
Prince of rovers, where art thou?
This was a brave old boyhood friend in the Mount Shasta Days. You will find him there as the Prince in my “Life Among the Modocs,” “Unwritten History, Paquita,” “My Life Among the Indians,” “My Own Story,” or whatever other name enterprising or piratical publishers, Europe or America, may have chosen to give the one prose book Mulford and I put out in London during the Modoc war. This man, Prince Thomas, now of Leon, Nicaragua, was a great favorite and my best friend, in one sense for years in Europe. He had passed the most adventurous life conceivable, at one time having been king of an island. He gloried in the story of his wild life, spent money like a real prince, and was the envy and admiration of fashionable club men.
“Where in all the world, and when, did he get so much money?” once asked the president of the Savage Club.
“Well, I am not certain whether it was as a pirate of the South Seas or merely as a brigand of Mexico,” I answered.
This answer coming to the ears of Thomas, he so far from being angered was greatly pleased and laughed heartily over. It with some friends at Lord Houghton's table.
THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS
I can but dream of thee today.
But dream? Oh! I could kneel and pray
To one, who, like a tender light,
Leads ever on my lonesome way,
And will not pass—yet will not stay.
I saw you walk in splendid state,
With lifted head and heart elate,
And lilies in your white right hand,
Beneath your proud Saint Peter's dome
That, silent, lords almighty Rome.
Your garments were of gold and snow;
And men did turn and marvel so,
And men did say, How matchless fair!
And all men follow'd as you pass'd;
But I came silent, lone, and last.
And girt with cord, and sandal shod,
Did look to thee, and then to God.
They cross'd themselves, with heads held down;
They chid themselves, for fear that they
Should, seeing thee, forget to pray.
Men pass'd, ten thousand in a line.
You stood before the sacred shrine,
You stood as if you had not heard.
And laid two lilies in my hand.
You yet might weary of all men,
And turn unto your singer then,
And lay one lily in his hand,
Lo! I would follow true and far
As seamen track the polar star.
O Lady, reach a hand today,
And thou shalt walk the milky way,
For I will give thy name to song.
Yea, I am of the kings of thought,
And thou shalt live when kings are not.
THE POET
Yes, I am a dreamer. Yet while you dream,Then I am awake. When a child, back through
The gates of the past I peer'd, and I knew
The land I had lived in. I saw a broad stream,
Saw rainbows that compass'd a world in their reach;
I saw my belovéd go down on the beach;
Saw her lean to this earth, saw her looking for me
As shipmen looked for loved ship at sea. ...
While you seek gold in the earth, why, I
See gold in the steeps of the starry sky;
And which do you think has the fairer view
Of God in heaven—the dreamer or you?
LINCOLN PARK
Unwalled it lies, and open as the sunWhen God swings wide the dark doors of the East.
Oh, keep this one spot, still this one,
Where tramp or banker, laymen or high priest,
May equal meet before the face of God:
Yea, equals stand upon that common sod
Where they shall one day equals be
Beneath, for aye, and all eternity.
THE RIVER OF REST
The still, wide waters sweep clear and cold,
A tall mast crosses a star in the west,
A white sail gleams in the west world's gold:
It leans to the shore of the River of Rest—
The lily-lined shore of the River of Rest.
He knows you well, he will steer you true,
And far, so far, from all ills upon land,
From hates, from fates that pursue and pursue;
Far over the lily-lined River of Rest—
Dear mystical, magical River of Rest.
The souls of all time keep its ultimate shore;
And journey you east or journey you west,
Unwilling, or willing, sure footed or sore,
You surely will come to this River of Rest—
This beautiful, beautiful River of Rest.
THE NEW PRESIDENT
Corridor, column and dome!
A capitol huge as a planet
And massive as marble-built Rome.
Go up with thy face to the sun;
They are stained with the footsteps and story
Of giants and battles well won.
Lo! Arlington, storied and still,
With a lullaby hush. But the land it
Springs fresh as that sun-fronted hill.
In majesty moves to the sea—
Beneath us a sea of proud people
Moves on, undivided as he.
For all the days under the sun;
The banners unite and are blended
As moonlight and sunlight in one.
Broad star-balanced banners of blue—
If a single star fell from fair heaven,
Why, what would befall us think you?
MONTGOMERY AT QUEBEC
The snow his winding sheet;
The grinding ice at his feet—
The river moaning in pain.
Flowers for him today
Above on the battlements gray—
And the river rolling past.
AFRICA
Made dumb with awe and wonderment,
Beneath a palm before my tent,
With idle and discouraged hands,
Not many days ago, on sands
Of awful, silent Africa.
Long gazing on her ghostly shades,
That lift their bare arms in the air,
I lay. I mused where story fades
From her dark brow and found her fair.
There runs that warm, forbidden blood
That no man dares to dignify
In elevated song. The chains
That held her race but yesterday
Hold still the hands of men. Forbid
Is Ethiop. The turbid flood
Of prejudice lies stagnant still,
And all the world is tainted. Will
And wit lie broken as a lance
Against the brazen mailéd face
Of old opinion. None advance,
Steel-clad and glad, to the attack,
With trumpet and with song. Look back!
Beneath yon pyramids lie hid
The histories of her great race. ...
Old Nilus rolls right sullen by,
With all his secrets. Who shall say:
My father rear'd a pyramid;
My brother clipp'd the dragon's wings;
My mother was Semiramis?
Yea, harps strike idly out of place;
New-born and known but yesterday,
And Norman blood presumes to say ...
And vaunt deeds dignified by time
Must not despise her. Who hath worn
Since time began a face that is
So all-enduring, old like this—
A face like Africa's? Behold!
The Sphinx is Africa. The bond
Of silence is upon her. Old
And white with tombs, and rent and shorn;
With raiment wet with tears, and torn,
And trampled on, yet all untamed,
All naked now, yet not ashamed,—
The mistress of the young world's prime,
Whose obelisks still laugh at time,
And lift to heaven her fair name,
Sleeps satisfied upon her fame.
Beyond the tawny desert-tomb
Of Time; beyond tradition, loom
And lifts, ghost-like, from out the gloom,
Her thousand cities, battle-torn
And gray with story and with Time.
Her humblest ruins are sublime;
Her thrones with mosses overborne
Make velvets for the feet of Time.
The letter'd obelisks that lord
Old Rome, and know my name and deed.
I had grown weary of all men.”
We turn to these; we cry: “Abhorr'd
Old Sphinx, behold, we cannot read!”
SUMMER MOONS AT MOUNT VERNON
Such bridal bough, like orange tree!
Such wondrous stars! Yon lily moon
Seems like some long-lost afternoon!
We hold the full days of the year;
The days troop by like flower girls,
And all the days are ours here.
Here youth must learn; here age may live
Full tide each day the year can give.
Shuts Nature's book from us today;
Her palm leaves lift too high to clasp;
Her college walls, the milky way.
The light is with us! Read and lead!
The larger book, the loftier deed!
THE POEM BY THE POTOMAC
The Bastile key to our Washington,
Whose feet on the neck of tyrants set
Shattered their prisons every one.
The key hangs here on his white walls high,
That all shall see, that none shall forget
What tyrants have been, what they may be yet;
And the Potomac rolling by.
And tell its story of blood and of tears,
That Time still holds to the Poet's trust,
To people his pages for years and years.
The monstrous shape on the white walls high,
Like a thief in chains let it rot and rust—
Its kings and adorers crowned in dust:
And the Potomac rolling by.
Two or three hundred steps to the right and up a general incline and you stand on the board, high porch of Mount Vernon.
A great river creeps close underneath one hundred feet below. You might suppose you could throw a stone, standing on the porch, into the Potomac, as seen through the trees that hug the hillside and the water's bank below. All was quiet, so quiet. Now and then a barnyard fowl, back in the rear, strained his glossy neck and called out loud and clear in the eternal Sabbath here; a fine shaggy dog wallowed and romped about the grassy dooryard, while far out over the vast river some black, wide-winged birds kept circling round and round. I went back and around into the barnyard to inquire what kind of birds they were. I met a very respectful but very stammery negro here. He took his cap in his hand, and twisting it all about and opening his mouth many times, he finally said:
“Do-do-dose burds was created by de Lord to p-p-pu-purify de yearth.”
“But what do you call them, uncle?”
“Tur-tur-tur,” and he twisted his cap, backed out, came forward, winked his eyes, but could not go on.
“Do you mean turkey buzzards?”
“Ya-ya-yas, sah, do-do-dose burds eats up de carrion ob de yearth, sah.”
Down yonder is the tomb, the family vault. Back in the rear of the two marble coffins about thirty of the Washington family lie. The vault is locked up and closed forever. The key has been thrown into the trusty old Potomac to lie there until the last trump shall open all tombs.
Let no one hereafter complain of having to live in a garret alone and without a fire. For here, with all this spacious and Noble house to select from, the widow of Washington chose a garret looking to the south and out upon his tomb. This is the old tomb where he was first laid to rest and where the fallen oak leaves are crowding in heaps now and almost filling up the low, dark doorway.
This garret has but one window, a small and narrow dormer window, and is otherwise quite dark. A bottom corner of the door is cut away so that her cat might come and go at will. And this is the saddest, tenderest sight at Mount Vernon. It seemed to me that I could see this noble lady sitting here, looking out upon the tomb of her mighty dead, the great river sweeping fast beyond, her heart full of the memory of a mighty Nation's birth, waiting, waiting, waiting.
The thing, however, of the most singular interest here is a key of the Bastile, presented by Thomas Paine to Lafayette, who brought it to America and presented it to Mount Vernon. It hangs here in a glass case, massive and monstrous. It is a hideous, horrible thing, and has, perhaps, more blood and misery on it than ony other piece of iron or steel that was ever seen.
A DEAD CARPENTER
This builder, this brother, now resting forever?
What shall be said of this soldier who bled
Through thirty-three years of silent endeavor?
As something far nobler, as braver by far
Than purple-robed Cæsar of battle-torn town
When bringing home glittering trophies of war.
Be silent of song, for the master is mute!
The Carpenter, master, is dead and lo! there is
Silence of song upon nature's draped lute!
My brother by toil 'mid the toiling and lowly,
My brother by sign of this hard hand, by sign
Of toil, and hard toil, that the Christ has made holy:
Brave brother in patience and silent endeavor,
Rest on, as the harvester rich from his soil,
Rest you, and rest you for ever and ever.
QUESTION?
And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,
She walk'd in her maidenly prime among
The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.
And he flash'd his sword as the soldiers do,
And he moved like a king full over the field,
And he looked, and he loved her brave and true.
As he lay at rest in a reach of light,
He beheld her walking alone at night,
When the buttercup stars in their beauty swim.
And he reach'd his arms, and round her waist
He wound them strong like a love-struck man,
And he kiss'd and embraced her, brave and chaste.
And he warm'd in his love as the long years ran,
Then embraced her again, and sweet mother Earth
Was a mother indeed, and her child was man.
What more do you know? what more do I need?
And I love them both, and let laugh at your creed.
In my great, warm faith? Time answers us not:
The quick fool questions; but who replies?
The wise man hesitates, hushed in thought.
BOSTON TO THE BOERS
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the glory in the distance,
For the good that we can do.”
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, are ever won.”—
Byron.
Be with ye, Boers. Brave men of peace,
Ye hewed the path, ye brake the sod,
Ye fed white flocks of fat increase,
Where Saxon foot had never trod;
Where Saxon foot unto this day
Had measured not, had never known,
Had ye not bravely led the way
And made such happy homes your own.
The priestess Mother, choristers
Who spin and weave, nor care to roam
Beyond this white God's house of hers,
But spinning sing and spin again.
I think such silent shepherd men
Most like that few the prophet sings—
Most like that few stout Abram drew
Triumphant o'er the slaughtered kings.
Draw forth the plowshare from the sod,
And trust, as in the Holy Book,
The Sword of Gideon and of God;
God and the right! Enough to fight
Defend! Nor count what comes of it.
God's battle bides not with the strong;
And pride must fall. Lo! it is writ!
Fame's wine-cup pressing her proud lips—
Her checker-board of battle squares
Rimmed round by steel-built battle-ships!
And yet meanwhiles ten thousand miles
She seeks ye out. Well, welcome her!
Give her such welcome with such will
As Boston gave in battle's whir
That red, dread day at Bunker Hill.
My first, best friends were British. They still are, and so far from finding fault that I favor the Boers, they exult that I dare for the right. They are the better class of British. England's best friends to-day are those who deplore this assault on the farmer Boers, so like ourselves a century back. Could any man be found strong enough to stay her hand, with sword or pen, in this mad hour, that man would deserve her lasting gratitude. This feeling holds in England as well as here. Take for example the following from her ablest thinker to a friend in America:—
“I rejoice that you and others are bent on showing that there are some among us who think the national honor is not being enhanced by putting down the weak. Would that age and ill health did not prevent me from aiding. No one can deny that at the time of the Jameson Raid the aim of the Outlanders and the raiders was to usurp the Transvaal government, and he must be willfully blind who does not see what the Outlanders failed to do by bullets they hope presently to do by votes, and only those who, while jealous of their own independence, regard but little the independence of people who stand in their way, can fail to sympathize with the Boers in their resistance to political extinction. It is sad to see our government backing those whose avowed policy is expansion, which, less politely expressed, means aggression, or which there is a still less polite word readily guessed. On behalf of these, the big British Empire, weapon in hand, growls out to the little Boer republic, ‘Do as I bid you.’ I have always thought that nobleness is shown in treating tenderly those who are relatively feeble and even sacrificing on their behalf something to which there is a just claim. But if current opinion is right, I must have been wrong.—
Herbert Spencer.”ST. PAUL'S
Of gold. It grows like some great cedar tree
Upon a peak in shroud of cloud and moss,
Made bare and bronzed in far antiquity.
Stupendous pile! The grim Yosemite
Has rent apart his granite wall, and thrown
Its rugged from before us. ... Here I see
The strides of giant men in cryptic stone,
And turn, and slow descend where sleep the great alone.
The brave returned to sleep amid the brave.
The sentinel that stood with steely breast
Before the fiery hosts of France, and gave
The battle-cry that roll'd, receding wave
On wave, the foeman flying back and far,
Is here. How still! Yet louder now the grave
Than ever-crashing Belgian battle-car
Or blue and battle-shaken seas of Trafalgar.
The hollow, deep and strange responding stones;
He stands with lifted staff unchid before
The forms that once had crush'd or fashion'd thrones,
And coldly points you out the coffin'd bones:
He stands composed where armies could not stand
A little time before. ... The hand disowns
The idle sword, and now instead the grand
And golden cross makes sign and takes austere command.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Her mother heart is filled with memories;
Her every niche is stored with storied names;
They move before me like a mist of seas.
I am confused, and made abash'd by these
Most kingly souls, grand, silent, and severe.
I am not equal, I should sore displease
The living ... dead. I dare not enter; drear
And stain'd in storms of grander days all things appear.
When art has taught me gentler, kindlier skill,
And time has given force and strength of strain?
I go! O ye that dignify and fill
The chronicles of earth! I would instil
Into my soul somehow the atmosphere
Of sanctity that here usurps the will;
But go; I seek the tomb of one—a peer
Of peers—whose dust a fool refused to cherish here.
AT LORD BYRON'S TOMB
Before the lordliest dust that ever yet
Moved animate in human form divine.
Lo! dust indeed to dust. The mold is set
Above thee and the ancient walls are wet,
And drip all day in dank and silent gloom,
As if the cold gray stones could not forget
Thy great estate shrunk to this somber room,
But lean to weep perpetual tears above thy tomb.
Before me lifts the ancient Annesley Hall
Above the mossy oaks. ... A picture fills
With forms of other days. A maiden tall
And fair; a fiery restless boy, with all
The force of man! a steed that frets without;
A long thin sword that rusts upon the wall. ...
The generations pass. ... Behold! about
The ivied hall the fair-hair'd children sport and shout.
Hangs damp and stain'd upon the dark gray wall,
Above thy time-soil'd tomb and tatter'd crest;
A bay wreath gather'd by the seas that call
To orient Cathay, that break and fall
On shell-lined shores before Tahiti's breeze.
A slab, a crest, a wreath, and these are all
Neglected, tatter'd, torn; yet only these
The world bestows for song that rivall'd singing seas.
Than Shastan; fair as thy eternal fame,
She sat and wove above the sunset wave,
And wound and sang thy measures and thy name.
'Twas wound by one, yet sent with one acclaim
By many, fair and warm as flowing wine,
And purely true, and tall as growing flame,
That list and lean in moonlight's mellow shine
To tropic tales of love in other tongues than thine.
And my few loves, to thy forgotten tomb;
I leave them here; and here all pardon ask
Of thee, and patience ask of singers whom
Thy majesty hath silenced. I resume
My staff, and now my face is to the West;
My feet are worn; the sun is gone, a gloom
Has mantled Hucknall, and the minstrel's zest
For fame is broken here, and here he pleads for rest.
ENGLAND
Thou, mother of brave men, of nations! Thou,The white-brow'd Queen of bold white-bearded Sea!
Thou wert of old ever the same as now,
So strong, so weak, so tame, so fierce, so bound, so free,
A contradiction and a mystery;
Serene, yet passionate, in ways thine own.
Thy brave ships wind and weave earth's destiny.
The zones of earth, aye, thou hast set and sown
All seas in bed of blossom'd sail, as some great garden blown.
RIEL, THE REBEL
A priest at the left, a priest at the right;
The doomed man praying for his pitiless foes,
And each priest holding a low dim light,
To pray for the soul of the dying.
But Windsor Castle was far away;
And Windsor Castle was never so gay
With her gorgeous banners flying!
'Twas splendidly done, the telegraph said;
A creak of the neck, then the shoulders drawn;
A heave of the breast—and the man hung dead,
And, oh! never such valiant dying!
While Windsor Castle was far away
With its fops and fools on that windy day,
And its thousand banners flying!
THE DEFENSE OF THE ALAMO
There was rumble of cannon; there was rattle of blade;
There was cavalry, infantry, bugle and drum—
Full seven proud thousand in pomp and parade,
The chivalry, flower of all Mexico;
And a gaunt two hundred in the Alamo!
For the siege had been bitter, and bloody, and long.
“Surrender, or die!”—“Men, what will you do?”
And Travis, great Travis, drew sword, quick and strong;
Drew a line at his feet. ... Will you come? Will you go?
I die with my wounded, in the Alamo.”
Then Crockett, one hand to the sick, one hand to his gun,
Crossed with him; then never a word or a sign
Till all, sick or well, all, all, save but one,
One man. Then a woman stopped praying, and slow
Across, to die with the heroes of the Alamo.
When all men silently prayed and thought
Till dawn; then Travis sent his single last cannon-shot,
In answer to insolent Mexico,
From the old bell-tower of the Alamo.
Then the red escalade; then the fight hand to hand:
Such an unequal fight as never had name
Since the Persian hordes butchered that doomed Spartan band.
All day—all day and all night, and the morning? so slow,
Through the battle smoke mantling the Alamo.
In a crescent outside! And within? Not a breath
Save the gasp of a woman, with gory, gashed head,
All alone, with her dead there, waiting for death;
And she but a nurse. Yet when shall we know
Another like this of the Alamo?
I say, 'tis not always with the hosts that win;
I say that the victory, high or low,
Is given the hero who grapples with sin,
Or legion or single; just asking to know
When duty fronts death in his Alamo.
TOMORROW
O day that ever runs before!
What hast thine hidden hand in store
For mine, Tomorrow, and for me?
O thou Tomorrow! what hast thou
In store to make me bear the Now?
The tangled troubles of today!
O day that laughs at duns, at debt!
O day of promises to pay!
O shelter from all present storm!
O day in which we shall reform!
Convenient day of promises!
Hold back the shadow of the storm.
Let not thy mystery be less,
O bless'd Tomorrow! chiefest friend,
But lead us blindfold to the end.
FINALE
Once on a savage snow-bound height
We pigmies pierced a king. Upon
His bare and upreared breast till night
We rained red arrows and we rained
Hot lead. Then up the steep and slow
He passed; yet ever still disdained
To strike, or even look below.
We found him, high above the clouds next morn
And dead, in all his silent, splendid scorn.
Comes on a little time to pass,
Or pray. For steep the stony height
And torn by storm, and bare of grass
Or blossom. And when I lie dead
Oh, do not drag me down once more.
For Jesus' sake let my poor head
Lie pillowed with these stones. My store
Of wealth is these. I earned them. Let me keep
Still on alone, on mine own star-lit steep.
TO JUANITA
Come! For I by steep and stone
Have built such nest for you, Juanita,
As not eagle bird hath known.
Rude, as all roads I have trod—
Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes
Smooth o'er head, and nearest God.
Shake its walls in Titan wars!
Here white sea-born clouds companion
With such peaks as know the stars!
Here the snarling chaparral
House and hang o'er steeps, Juanita,
Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell!
Fresh from Him who fashioned them;
Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes,
Flower set, as sets a gem.
Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt;
Yet I built as His birds builded—
Builded, singing as I built.
Wait your loyal little feet.
Till you come are incomplete.
Deep below me lies the town,
Where great sea-ships ride and rally,
And the world walks up and down.
When the thousand flags are furled—
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming
As it duplicates the world!
Come my sovereign queen of ten;
My blue skies will then be bluest;
My white rose be whitest then:
Flashing up the walls of night!
Hate of wrong and love of neighbor—
Rhymes of battle for the Right!
| Joaquin Miller's Poems | |